Revision as of 21:28, 5 June 2017

WIP

COPIED FROM OPS MEETUPS TEAM MODERATORS GUIDE

Thank you very much for stepping up to be moderators at the ops meetup. Your work is key to our success!

You are in control of your sessions, however, this document lay down some ideas about what we've seen in the past makes a good session, in case it helps.

We have two different types of sessions. General Sessions and Working Groups. Below, I've separated them out so you can read what's relevant to you.

We have three overall aims:

Gather feedback on the issues that come up in running or using OpenStack and work to communicate this throughout the community
Create a forum in which to share best practices and architectures between interested parties
Increase constructive, proactive involvement from those running or using clouds

General Sessions

Basically, it's you, an etherpad, and room full of a couple hundred people who have OpenStack experience. As the moderator, your efforts result in actionable things we can work on, and the satisfied audience.

Introduce yourself to the audio guy or gal. You'll be provided with a microphone and asked about laptop connection.
The best thing to do is convince one of your friends to control the laptop. Get them to control the display of the etherpad, and if it gets big, scroll up and down to ensure the most relevant parts are seen.
At the start of the session give a 30 second intro to the etherpad, and ask everyone to take notes using it. (Many attendees will not be used to etherpads)
Kick off the discussion on time, perhaps by starting with some open ended questions, or a show of hands to understand the audience
Aim to get it to that nirvana state, where the conversation continues without your help
Don't fall into "Question and Answer" mode - just because you're up the front of the room, some people might expect you to do this. Steer back toward discussion always.
There will be microphone hogs. Do not be afraid to cut them off. Using language like "Thank you, that is important, we have recorded that on the etherpad" will mean there'll be no hard feelings.
If you see a nice transition between different topics, take it!
Most importantly: try and aim for every discussion to have at least one action item - something we can work on. If we don't do this, people are going to stop coming to these things

Overall, have fun! Also *be* fun! If you get bored, the audience will sense it - so if it happens start a new topic. Spontaneity is good! Asking people to do things (file a bug, start a mailing list post) is good!

Working Groups - "Small, working sessions"

These sessions are for a focus on specific topics, and they are long sessions (normally 80 minutes) so you can actually, legitimately get work done - not just talk.

You'll have yourself, and a small group of people who are experienced with OpenStack and actually very interested in getting involved. It's your job as facilitator to try and convert each and every one of these people into a proactive member of your working group, ideally continuing their tenure well after the summit.

Since these are mostly longer session, and about much more specific things, it requires a bit more planning. For some of the groups, you will have met before and have work and processes to continue. Try and seed your etherpads with this information prior to the session.

Try and think of some concrete things that can be done during your time, but also be ready and open to the suggestions of the attendees. If there's a great idea that everyone believes in, go for it and get it done. File bugs. File blueprints. Submit patches. Write documents. Use the whiteboard. You have time for all of this

Of course, all of this information is general. You are the rockstars here - do whatever you think is best . Tom will be on hand for much of the two days for assistance. (call +886 98833 1200 if anything goes horribly wrong)

There are also a few sessions which are a bit different...

Architecture Show and Tell

This is a series of lightening talks - basically a 5-8 minute talk about something cool about your deployment.

If you're moderating this, one of the main duties you have to perform (or delegate) is that of timekeeping - we normally cycle through many talks in each session.

Best practice is to get any slides people are using into one laptop before the start of the session.

Pre-and Post Meetup

Fully realising you are a volunteer with limited time and that you might not get around to any of this, some of the things that are cool to do before or after the meetup are:

Post a thread on the ops ML asking for ideas for your session (and also advertising it)
Giving a tweet out with the schedule details
Filling in the etherpad with some conversation start topics (or, if you are a developer looking for feedback - questions you would like answered)
Posting on the Ops ML a summary of the session and linking to the etherpad for those who couldn't make it
Writing a new wiki page under the Operations page with a summary of best practices/new tools you discovered etc
Following up on action items that people volunteered to do during the meetup ;)
Organising a followup IRC meeting, if applicable

FORUM MODERATOR TEMPLATE

- This is just a template. Feel free to copy this content and paste it to your own etherpad. The primary goal is to obtain actionable items for our community.

TEMPLATE FOR BOSTON FORUM SESSION

Fishbowl Session? Sit close if you want to be vocal, speak up, your words matter!

<SESSION TITLE>

Etherpad: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/BOS-forum-moderator-template (suggested url format: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/BOS-forum-<sessionname-abc>) Schedule Details: http://forumtopics.openstack.org/cfp/details/XYZ

DATE / TIME / ROOM LOCATION Moderator: Your name <email@address> (irchandle)

Related Forum etherpad(s):

Related PTG etherpad(s):

Related Ops etherpad(s):

Other related etherpad(s):

Use of ##<hashtag>:

- Use ##<hashtag> to highlight actionable items or something that need attention from a specific project team or working group
- This help the Forum team to aggregate data and produce post-forum summary report
- If a discussion item contains multiple actionable items in sub-bullet list format, please also include the same ##hashtag at the end of the sub-bullet list.
- Examples on how to use ##hashtag can be found here: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/BOS-forum-hashtag-definition

Recommended hashtag:

   ##newfeature - Proposal for a new feature, similar to RFE

   ##gap - Feature gap that does not have a solution yet

   ##uservoice - Feedback from users and operators

   ##painpoint - Functional challenges/problems (either real or perceived) in operating openstack cloud (e.g. upgrade is painful, root-cause analysis is complex)

   ##<workload-type> - Any new or existing workload for OpenStack, examples of workload-related hashtag can be ##nfv, ##hpc, ##enterprise, ##bigdata, ##iot, or a new workload type you identify

   ##<project-name> - Items that need action/attention from a specific OpenStack projects (e.g. ##nova, ##neutron, ##glance, etc)

   ##<working-group/team-name> - Items that need action/attention from a specific OpenStack working groups/teams (e.g. ##lcoo, ##pwg, ##ewg, ##publiccloud, ##interop, ##uc, ##tc, ##board, ##foundation)

Session Description: Begin with the end in mind and write a paragraph, list, etc Taken from guide on crafting session description found here - http://velvetchainsaw.com/2010/03/18/crafting-better-conference-materials-writing-session-descriptions-for-dummies/

   Make a list of every feature of attending the session.

   Ask why each feature is included in the first place.

   Take the why and ask how this connects with the prospective attendee’s desires.

   Get to the absolute root of what’s in it for the attendee at an emotional level.

Agenda: From your description above, break out as much as you can into talking points so that there is a smooth transition to the end. We want to accomplish something during this session which can be measured after the session is over and are looking to you as a moderator to help extract actionable items and/or information.

   Discussion Item 1

   Folks should be adding notes here

   Additionally you can prepare sub-items relevant to the primary discussion item

   Discussion Item 2

   Discussion Item 3

...

Work Items / Wishlist: Allow for 5 minutes or so at the end of your session to capture work items just in case it was not possible during the session. Always good to ensure these were captured and use the ##<hashtag> whenever possible.

Participants:

   Your name <email@address> (irchandle)

Difference between revisions of "Moderator Guide"